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ADDRESS 



SERVICES OF WASHINGTON, 



BEFORE THE 



SCHOOL CHILDREN OF BOSTON 



^ 



OLD SOUTH MEETING HOUSE, 



22 FEBRUARY 1886. 



WILLIAM EVERETT. 



BOSTON : 
ROBERTS BROTHERS, 

1886. 



ADDRESS 



SERVICES OF WASHINGTON, 



BKFOKK THK 



5CH00L CHILDREN OF BOSTON, 



OLD SOUTH MEETING HOUSE. 



22 FEBRUARY 1886, 



WILLIAM EVERETT. 

SEP 6 1881 



Ol©/wASHlH' 



BOSTON -N^- WASHIHC^ 

ROBERTS BROTHERS, 

188G. 
C<7 



ADDRESS 



May it Please Youk Honor: Fellow 
Citizens, Young and Old — When Boston cele- 
brates Washington's Birthday in the Old South, it 
is natural to think of that winter long ago when 
Washington himself passed his birthday within 
cannon shot of the Old South, one might say. 
One hundred and ten years ago this day, the 22d 
of February, was kept by Washington in the old 
headquarters at Cambridge, chafing at the want 
of artillery that delayed his driving the English 
out of Boston. This house, as I trust every boy 
and girl here knows, was a riding school for the 
British troopers, who found it easier to exercise 
their horses in the Old South than to get hay 
and corn for them, with the rebel parties scour- 
ing every meadow and island, and carrying off 
the fodder by stacks. There is no record, so far 
as I am aware, of any extraordinary flood near 
Boston in the second week of February, 1776, 
though perhaps it would not have done so much 
harm if there had been, as people then did not 
think of living in the swamps and gullies into 
which they now crowd, and it would have been 
justly thought absurd and impious to turn the 
oozy flats west of the Common into streets and 
houses. But we do know that it was an open 



and warm season. '^ Everything thaAvs here but 
Old Put," says a letter written in those days. 
Old Put was full of a plan to march straight 
across those same Back Bay flats, when they 
Avere frozen, as he thought they ought to have 
been in the month of February ; but they re- 
mained obstinately open, and the old hero of the 
wolfs den was frozen and crusty in proportion. 
By the 4th of IMarch, wdiich is sure to be a cold 
day for somebody, the ground was again frozen 
solid, and the hard frost added no little to the 
difficulty experienced by Washington in fortify- 
ing Dorchester Heights for the final assault. 

The ^^reparations for that assault were actively 
going on all this third week of February. It was, 
I tliiidv, on this very day that General Knox suc- 
ceeded in completing the transport of his siege 
guns all across the State, from the forts on Lake 
Champlain — no trifling feat even now with our 
railroads, and a portentous task on the winter 
roads of that day. The hay which the poor horses 
in the Old South missed so sadly was packing into 
enormous fascines for the siege works on the 
heights. Manly, by his daring capture at sea, had 
at last secured an abundance of powder ; Gridley 
and Thomas, and Rufus Putnam, the pioneer of 
Ohio, w^ere working on all details of the final 
storm. And it must have been almost exactly on 
the anniversary of Washington's Birthday that 
he began the actual putting into operation those 
plans which culminated on the anniversary of the 



Boston massacre, eleven days later, with the fatal 
seizure of the heights. 

In about a fortnight more the English were 
driven from Boston,, and Washington went in 
triumphal procession along the Neck, and into 
this buildino' to see and mourn over the ravag-'es 
of the brutal troopers. 

Our street, afterwards named for him, was 
then known as Orange street from the iiarrowest 
part, not far from Union Park, to Essex street; 
as Newbury street to West street; as Marlborough 
street to School street ; and as Cornhill to its 
termination in Dock square. These names re- 
mained well into this century; but it did not need 
the change to the name of Washington to stamp 
his memory on every stone in these streets, every 
brick in this ancient meeting-house and in 
all the buildings of Boston, every wharf that pro- 
jects into our harbor, every tree that waves on 
the Common, every hearthstone that glows with 
domestic comfort, every dome and spire tliat 
courts the sun. Boston itself, which he con- 
quered for its own people, which he saved from 
the fires of its spiteful garrison, — Boston, Avliich 
always loved him, always honored him, always 
fought with him and for him, always reverenced 
and mourned him, — is a monument in every foot 
of her territory to him, her darling chief, her 
sainted guide, as pure and as single as the stately 
obelisk that toAvers at the cit}' of his name on 
the banks of his own river. 



His birthday will be celebrated in many ways 
throughout the United States to-day; but this 
celebration, I understand, is to keep his name 
alive in the hearts of young people — to tell them 
why we give an entire holiday, not to any great 
battle or great event like Bunker Hill or the Dec- 
laration, but to a man : the only man, as far as I 
know, on whose birthday an entire nation now 
openly stoj^s its work and gives way to grateful 
memories. 

AVhen I was a boy, the age of many of you, I 
was tired, not to say sick, of hearing about Wash- 
ington. It seemed to me that every book which 
they gave me about the country, every history, 
every reader, every speaker talked about him in- 
cessantly, as if there was no one else in the world, 
as if his was the only name worth mentioning. 
And yet it seemed to me it was only a name ; they 
were always talking about his character, as if it 
was something one had never seen before; they 
praised it in the same words over and over again ; 
and yet they did not seem to tell me about any- 
thing particular that he did or said. I found his 
life terribly dull to read ; I could not remember it, 
as I could the lives of other men ; and I turned 
away tired and weary of Washington's name, to 
find in other biographies and other histories the 
stories of men whom I seemed to feel were more 
real and nearer to my heart. 

I think this weariness came partly from the 
oooks which were written about Washington. 



The standard lives of him, on which the cliiklren's 
books were based, were written by men who hon- 
ored him and loved him, who wanted to preserve 
every scrap of real Jvnowledge abont him, and 
make a life as trnthful as he was himself. > They 
consequently threw away a great deal of trash in 
the way of impossible feats and sayings that had 
been invented abont him, and determined to tell 
nothing but the truth ; but they threw away also 
the real life of the man. They did what a great 
many authors did about fifty years ago — in order 
to make books that nobody could find fault with, 
they made books that nobody could care about ; 
and consequently they left on my mind just ex- 
actly that idea about Washington, — that he was 
a man that nobody could find fault with, but 
that nobody could care about. That was the 
way I felt as a boy. 

It was just thirty years ago this dav that 1 
heard an oration about Washington Avhich set me 
thinking, as it did thousands of other Americans, 
what it could be that had made the Avhole country 
pick him out as such a man above other men; 
why the men who saw him during the sixty-seven 
years of his life, and their sons to whom they told 
his story, thought of him as they never thought 
of any other man. I began noting down every- 
thing I could learn about what the man actually 
had been in the time when he lived ; I compared 
him with other men who had done great things ; 
and very soon I found out why every one who 



talked about him had spoken of his character. I 
found out that the things he said and did, 
although many of them were really great things, 
yet ijeemed almost nothing, besides the man him- 
self. There was something — there is something 

— about him that not only made the things great 
wherein he succeeded, but the very things where- 
in he failed more honorable — and even glorious 

— than the successes of other men. I soon saw 
that the men of his own time put confidence in 
him, entirely independent of whether he suc- 
ceeded or failed, as people commonly talk of 
success or failure. I found out that when all he 
had to sliow^ for the men and mone}^ and power 
which he had received, was a thinned, discon- 
tented, defeated army, that was held to be only 
a reason for giving him more power — for giving 
him absolute power — that he might make the 
army strong and victorious. And so, as I read on, 
I became convinced that the whole man, his en- 
tire life, his united purposes, his unchangeable 
spirit, his character, in short, Avas something 
greater and stronger than other men, who might 
perhaps have done or said one thing, or half a 
dozen things, more striking than anything he 
could do. 

And so, my dear boys and girls, it began to 
dawn upon me what it was that made Washing- 
ton spoken of as I had found him. The men who 
had known him and the men to whom they had 
talked of him spoke of him in simple words of 



praise and trust for his greatness and goodness, 
without going into particuhirs, as they Avoukl 
about other men, because lie Avas all great and 
good. When you talk about Avealth and treas- 
ure ; Avhen you count U]^) all the thousand 
beautiful and useful and precious things in Bos- 
ton ; when you tell of the riclies and the labor and 
the study and the inyention that they need to 
produce their monstrous masses, their convenient 
appliances, their beautiful shapes, their gorgeous 
colors, you do not count in this air that is playing 
through our lungs, and this light that is stream- 
ing from heayen. These are not called yaluable, 
because they are priceless. They are not a part 
of our wealth or a help to our living, because they 
are Avealth and life itself; you cannot describe 
them — you cannot even see the air or touch the 
light ; but the air and light are above and beyond 
and Avitliin everything. So I found out it was 
with America in the last forty years of the centu- 
ry ; she had brave soldiers, skilful generals, Avise 
statesmen, eloquent orators, cunning inventors, 
bold seamen ; but behind and beyond and above 
them all she had this man, Avhose manhood, Avhose 
mere existence, helped to make the manhood and 
life of others, and Avas Avortli more than all that 
the best of them said and did. 

And so boys and girls, 1 learned to feel as 
those men felt. I learned to honor and love that 
man aboA^e every great man I read of; I learned 
to feel it Avas rio'ht he should be singled out as 



10 

the man of men, to have his birthday celebrated 
among all our great and glorious days till the end 
of time. I should like to make you feel as I feel ; 
I should like to give you, if you have not got it, 
something of the notion of vilmt it is to be simply 
a great man, and not merely great in some one 
thing. I shall try to do so ; and I think it will 
do no harm if I first run over to you what the 
great events of his life were, and it would be an 
excellent plan for you to learn them by heart. 
Learning names and dates and events by heart is 
in itself a good thing, though some people who 
don't know them, or are too lazy to know them, 
pretend it is not. 

George Washington was born in Westmore- 
land, Virginia, on the 22d of February, 1732, 
though people were eleven days behind then, so 
they called it only the 11th. His father, Augus- 
tine Washington, was a worthy Virginia planter, 
who died when George was quite young, and left 
the family to his mother's care. This lady, Avhose 
name had been Mary Ball, was, I am afraid, a 
pretty stern person, and brought up George in 
what was even then a very strict and unyielding 
way. His own brother Lawrence had made the 
acquaintance of Admiral Vernon, a very distin- 
guished naval officer, and when he built a new 
house higher up the Potomac, named it Mt. 
Vernon. ^ George was very near entering the 
English Navy in consequence of this friendship. 
He grew up unusually tall, strong and handsome, 



11 

very fond of out-door sports, especially fox hunt- 
ing, and was naturally of a fiery temper, which he 
managed to keep in control in a way I fear very 
few of us ever do. Whenever I hear of a boy, or 
for that matter of a man either, who excuses him- 
self for something wrong because he was made so, 
I think of Washington's temper, and how he 
made himself the most even of men. George was 
not in a way to get a great deal of schooling ; but 
as far as he could he educated himself to be a 
surveyor, and in that profession acquired a great 
knowledo'e of the wild land and mountains and 
rivers, and not a little of the wild men to the 
west of the Virginia settlements. In 1751 he 
entered the militia and studied everything he 
could on tlie art of war. In 1752 his brother 
died, and George succeeded to the family estate. 
Toward the end of the same year he was sent by 
the governor of Virginia on a very dangerous 
expedition, to the extreme frontier settlements on 
the iMonongahela and Alleghany, to see if there 
was any truth in the report that the French and 
Indians were preparing war against the colonies. 
In the return he was in imminent danger of los- 
ing his life, first by his Indian guide's treachery, 
and then by the flood and ice of the Alleghany, 
The next year, when war was actually at hand, 
he was sent to construct a frontier post near 
where Pittsburg now stands, which he called Fort 
Necessity. He was soon attacked, and obliged to 
surrender on the 4th of July, just twenty-two 



12 

years before the great declaration, leading his lit- 
tle force back with the utmost prudence and 
courage. In almost exactly a year he accompan- 
ied General Braddock to the same spot, and 
esca^iied from the disgraceful carnage without a 
wound, although a constant mark for the Indian 
bullets. In consequence of the disputes between 
officers of troops raised in the colonies and those 
who had come over from England, he soon with-! 
drew from the army; but he became a very 
important member of the Virginia Legislature. 
When the war for the rights of the Colonies broke^ 
out, in 1775, he was made commander-in-chief. 
He drove Sir William Howe from Boston in 
March, 1776. Later in the year he was defeated 
at Long Island, and at White Plains, retreating 
into New Jersey ; just as the old year was passing 
into the new, he Avon the victories of Trenton and 
Princeton ; he was defeated successively at the 
Brandywine and Germantown, 1777, and ended 
the year in the winter (juarters of Valley Forge 
near Philadelphia, in terrible suffering. He fought 
the battle of Monmouth in 1778, which would 
liave been a brilliant Aictory but for the treach- 
ery of Charles Lee. He narrowly escaped being 
captured at West Point, by the treachery of 
Arnold, 1780. With the help of the French allies 
he forced Lord Cornwallis to surrender in 1781. 
In 1784 he laid down his commission and retired 
wholly to private life. In 1787 he was president 
c.f the convention that formed the Constitution 



13 

Df the United States ; wai chosen the first Pres- 
ident after it had been adopted, and inaugurated 
Dn the 30th of April, 1789 ; served for two terms 
is President, and peremptorily refusing a third 
berm, issued his farewell address to the people in 
1796. The next year war broke out with France. 
He was called from his retirement and made 
lieutenant-general in 1798, and on the 14th of 
December, 1799, he died of a neglected cold, at 
uhe age of not quite sixty-eight years. 

These are the great events — the great land- 
Qiarks in his life. For what he showed himself in 
these years the men of his own time ranked him 
as a man fit to rank with the greatest men that 
9ver lived ; a name which America need never 
Pear to present to the world when great men are 
^poken of, and challenge other nations, old and 
new, to name a greater. 

What was it that made him so great ? What 
is it that makes anybody great ? What are great 
lien ? You might define the word in twenty dif- 
ferent ways ; and, as it seems to me, a great deal 
)f time has been wasted in cautioning boys and 
^irls not to get mistaken ideas of greatness. When 
[ was a boy, there used to be a debate printed for 
3oys to speak on the question whether Julius 
Zlaesar was or Avas not a great man ; you can find 
t in the old reading books, and a very rambling 
ind profitless debate it is. There are all sorts of 
^reat men ; and every one of us will have some 
'avorite, who we have been taught to think, or 



14 

have taught ourselves to think, is the greatest of 
the great. But I understand a great man to be 
one who leaves the world different from what he 
found it. He has stamped the seal of his name 
ujDon history, so that men must read it carelessly 
if they pass him by. The ways in which men are 
great are countless ; and some persons have their 
eyes so fixed upon one kind of greatness or 
another that they are surprised to learn that 
there have been great men whom they never 
heard of, and cannot believe they really are great. 
I am going to name to you a dozen men, born 
within a very few years of Washington, ever}^ one 
of whom changed the w^orld, so that either in his 
own lifetime, or after his death, men could not 
and cannot now do their own w^ork, without stop- 
ping to think what these great masters did before 
them, and learning of them, just as you learn of 
your teachers now. I shall scarcely go out of 
England in my list, and I shall name nobody that 
Washington might not easily have known if he 
had been so inclined. 

In that same year, 1732, which brought 
Washington into the world, was born Warren 
Hastings, the great governor of India, who fixed 
the empire of England over the Hindoos, Avitli a 
head as clear as crystal, but a hand and heart, I 
am afraid, as hard as iron. In the same year 
were born Lord Kenyon and Lord Thurlow, who 
were two of the very greatest lawyers and judges 
£)f their time, and rose together to be Chief Justie 






i5 

and Chancellor of England. In the same year, 
1732, was born Joseph Haydn, the great mnsical 
composer, the author of the '^ Seasons '' and the 
" Creation," whose strains are as sweet and as 
heavenly now as they were a hundred years ago. 
In 1731, the year before Washington, Avas' born 
William Cowper, the inspired poet, the author 
of the " Task '' and of "John Gilpin," who raised 
poetry almost from the grave in England with 
his manly, tender, lofty verses, never written for 
any but a good end. In that same year of 1731, 
was born Henry Cavendish, the great chemist, the 
discoverer of the composition of water, who gave 
that marvellous science of chemistrj^ a new im- 
pulse that it still feels. One 3'ear earlier, in 1730, 
was born Edmund Burke, the wise statesman, the 
oiorious orator, whom Ireland o-ave to Enoiand as 
the model of what her great men ought to be, the 
friend of America, dearer even to us than to his 
own. One year earlier, ^^'as born James Cook, the 
bold navigator, who brought the islands of the 
Pacific out of the darkness of ages ; as kind and 
thoughtful a captain as he Avas an intrepid and 
wise navigator. Six years before Washington, was 
born John Howard, the lover of mankind, who 
travelled the length and breadth of Europe, to 
relieve the miseries of the prisoner. Nine years 
before Washington, we have Reynolds, the great 
painter, on whose canvas the great men and lovely 
women of the century live and breathe in a rich 
immortality. Four years after Washington, was 



1(5 

l)orn, ill 1736, James Watt, the mighty iuveiitor, 
who seized on the spirit of tlie steam ch^ud, and 
chained his giant limbs for the Avork and service 
of man. In 1737 was born Edward Gibbon, the 
great historian, Avho compressed the fall of Rome, 
the story of fourteen centuries, into a monumental 
work, which all other writers must despair of sur- 
passing. In 1738, was born William Herschel, 
the astronomer, who turned to the heavens a 
mightier telescope by far than had yet been 
known, and forced the remote depths of the solar 
system to reveal the planet Uranus, whose very 
existence before was scarcely known and Avholly 
misunderstood. 

NoAV, here I have named to you a dozen men, 
every one of whom did something great, — every 
one of whom made the world feel liim ; to every 
one of whom the world has looked up as a master. 
And the stamp which they put on the world has 
not worn away. With two exceptions, they are 
all valued more highly than they were in their 
lives. The two great lawyers I named to you, 
Avho were considered in their lifetime far more 
successful, far luckier, as men say, than any of the 
others, have much less chance of having their 
names permanently counted among the really 
great men of the world than any of the others 
who were their contemporaries. 

Now what was it that made men count Wash- 
ington in his lifetime, and makes them count him 
now, greater in degree, greater in kind than any 



17 

of these ? He painted no pictures, he wrote no 
poems or histories, he sung no strains of nuisic, 
he discovered no islands, no elements, no planets. 
He did not make men tremble before him at the 
Bar, nor hang on his lips in the Senate. The 
only man of the twelve with whom we can> direct- 
ly compare him is Warren Hastings, who ceased 
to govern India just as Washington was beginning 
t(j govern America ; and the wide provinces that 
he ruled, the teeming millions he swayed, the vast 
tributes he exacted, the numerous and well-ap- 
pointed troops he directed, shame into insignifi- 
cance the half-clothed and feeble regiments, the 
scanty, the ill-paid, rather the unpaid, revenues, 
the scattered population of the half-explored and 
undeveloped country, which was all Washington 
liad to rule. Yet it seems almost a profane insult 
to name in the same day with Washington the 
great pro-consul whose birth so nearly agreed 
witli his own in time. 

He stands higher than all these men, most of 
whom were as good as they were great, because 
his work was in itself a greater work ; because 
the way he did it was a greater way than that in_ 
which work is often done, and because he inspired 
a trust in himself for what he did which made 
men yield themselves to liim as to a superior 
being. 

His work was the greatest that man requires. 
He created a nation. The time had come in the 



18 

providence of God tliat the United States should 
he no n:iore a dependency of England, but a peo- 
ple by themselves, and it was he that made them 
so. It very, very rarely happens that a new 
nation forms itself and takes its place among those 
that exist already. It can only be done when 
they choose to recognize it and admit that it 
really is their sister; and in order that they may 
give it this recognition, there must be some ^Ji'oof 
that it is worthy of that high place. It was 
"Washington that gave such a j^roof to the world. 
It was he, more than anyone man, — more than 
all togethe]", — whom America accepted as her 
leader, whom she j^resented to the world as her 
chosen son, the representative of her A'ery self. It 
was long years before the existence of the United 
States, the equal and sister of every other nation, 
was fully established ; again and again it seemed 
as if our self-assertion, our declaration must be 
23remature — as if we must break down ; and again 
and again it was Washington and Washington 
alone on whom we fell back as a rock from which 
the waves must recoil. After the defeat of White 
Plains in 1776, the capture of Philadelphia in 
1777, the rout of Camden in 1780, the prostration 
of national sentiment in 1785, the insolent aggres- 
sions of France in 1793 and 1798, it did seem as if 
America, the last hope of constitutional liberty, 
must break down under one or another evil force ; 
and every time it was the living jDresence of 
Washington that rallied the good and true all 



19 

over the Avoiid to lier support, like tlie white 
plume of Heniy lY, in the shock of Iviy. 

This creation of a new people, this adding a 
new star to the cluster of the nations, is a greater 
thing for man than the work of Cavendish in 
finding two gases in water, or of Cook in' finding 
new islands in the ocean, or of Herschel hi de- 
tecting a ncAV planet in the skies. It does not 
merely add a new name to the map ; but it endows 
every man and woman witliin the lines where 
that new name is printed with a life that had not 
belonged to them under the old. It is a great 
thing whenever it is done. When Italy became a 
nation, men could not help sounding the name of 
Cavour as a great man, though many things in his 
career might seem artful and almost treacherous. 
When Germany became a nation, men could not 
help praising Bismarck, though much in him may 
seem savage and tyrannical ; but both these men 
made a people. When a people is created, it 
claims for itself the glory of all other creations 
and discoveries which any of its children may 
acquire. The planet that Piazzi discovered at 
Palermo, the music that Bach poured forth at 
Eisenach have a new glory since Cavour and 
Bismarck created Italy and Germany. Since 
Washington's time, astronomers and chemists, 
artists and inventors, historians and poets, have 
sent the name of the United States far and wide 
through the Avorld ; but not one of all these illus- 
trious men but feels a keener glow in his own 



20 

triumph from tlie thouglit tliat lie is tlie country- 
iiiaii of Washington, the founder and father of 
jiis home. 

J)Ut he not merely made a new nation — he 
made it in the interests of haw and liberty. A 
nation may be created for no good. If a wikl 
tribe succeeds in breaking away from Avise re- 
straint, if a tyrant succeeds in carving out an 
empire and giving it his own name, it is a great 
but an accursed deed ; it is like the discovery of 
a new disease, or the invention of a new poison ; 
we wish that it may prove a failure. But Wash- 
ington made a new nation on the principles that 
pojnilar liberty can exist with a welcome to the 
natives of all lands, that reverence for law can 
exist among a people that are working to ])lant 
and subdue a wilderness ; and to find anything 
like v/hat he did we must go back to the unknown 
and unreal ages, when Theseus is said to have 
united in one the scattered communities of Attica 
and made of them the city of Athens, the home of 
liberty, the refuge of the oppressed, the mother of 
all that was bright and beautiful in the ancient 
world, the never-dying model of art and elo- 
quence and poetry. 

But it w^as the Avay he did tliii work, the 
virtues that he showed Avhile he Avas doing it, 
that made men feel that no nation ever had been 
so created, that no nation could have been cre- 
ated out of such materials by any other man. It 
was the far-reaching prudence that made him 



21 

calculate to the full ever}' measure Ijefore lie 
uudertook it ; it was the untiring patience which 
made him live and^Avork and plan through reverse 
after reverse and disappointment after disappoint- 
ment ; it was the dauntless courage and fortitude 
that made him eao-er to attack on the sli2,'htest 
opening, and slow to ^^ield under the severest 
pressure ; it was tlie soaring confidence, the un- 
dying hope — that child of patience and daring 
combined — that made him positively incapable 
of the despair that Ijowed others to the dust; it 
A\as tlie absolute unselfishness and generosity 
that prevented him, a score of times, from draw- 
ing to himself precisely the advantages that have 
corrupted one conqueror after another, while he 
saw, not only without a murmur, but wdtli the 
utmost cordiality, brilliant prizes assigned to oth- 
ers ; it was the unflinching devotion to right and 
duty, tlie stern rebuke of anything like wrong, 
the absolute reliance on God and reference to his 
will, which lifted him up to a higher level than 
most of us reach, and caused men to look to his 
words and his very thouglits as tliose of the in- 
spired of the Lord. 

Of these qualities, two st'eni to me most 
exceptional and wonderful, the sort of qualities 
that one wants in a liero, in tlie man whom you 
pick out to be your own favorite. -First, is that 
wonderful quality of hope — a child, as I say, of 
daring and patience — which is never satisfied 
with failure, which never gives up a cause, which 



22 

is ready to look forward a thousand times after 
the workl says there is nothing ahead. Hope is a 
virtue ; hope is a duty ; it is a guiding principle 
in our relio'ion, wherein tlie teaching^ of Christ 
differs from that of those strange people called 
philosophers, ancient or modern, in that it com- 
mands us to desire, to anticipate, to claim a future 
of success and happiness as the reward of duty. 
I cannot tell you how I despise the opposite phi- 
losophy, the doctrine of acquiescence, which 
believes that we ought to accept failures as our 
proper portion, and mould ourselves to destiny; 
still more, liow hateful to me is that belief, which 
has great names to sanction it, if anything could 
sanction it, that sometimes the best thing we 
could do is to try no longer, but to give up hope 
itself as a failure. Yet this last, meanest, most 
detestable belief is spreading, I cannot take up 
a paper now but I see the spread of this misera- 
ble, cowardly delusion of suicide. Every day I 
read of some man or woman or boy — thank 
Heaven I I scarcely ever see the news told of a 
girl — who decides that life is not worth living, 
and accordingly destroys what God gave to be 
used under his laws. It is a special sin of our 
times, as it has been of certain times before, this 
silly cow^ardice, this wanton wickedness, that can- 
not see God's sun shining behind the darkest 
cloud. I do not desire to spend many w^ords over 
a sin Avhicli has sent giief and horror into the 
hearts of hundreds of parents ; but I call on every 



23 

boy and girl here, who fancies life is hard, 
and men crnel, and God forgetful, to turn to the 
stoiy of Washington, and see ho^Y, under the 
most crushing blows, defeat, ingratitude, treach- 
ery, he not only never lost patience and courage, 
but maintained a lively hope, that carrred him 
through triumphant, when all else despaired ; and 
let them learn that to give up is a sin, and suicide 
as wicked as murder. 

And scarcely less equal to this is his generos- 
ity ; his utter unselfishness, that seemed incapable 
of thinking what personal distinction might be. I 
might give a score of instances, but the most 
striking was wdien Burgoyne was pressing down 
on us from the north, and all decency urged that 
the direction of affairs against him should be in 
Washington's hands. His enemies in Congress 
contrived to give the command to others. The 
battle of Saratoga followed, a brilliant and tri- 
umphant success, in contrast to all Washington's 
defeats. He never murmured; he received the 
victory with rejoicing and pride, even though the 
credit w^as given, not to Schuyler, whose talent 
had planned it — not to Arnold, whose courage 
had won it, but to Gates, — the vainest, the most 
trifling, the most incompetent of men. 

But yet some men know all this about Wash- 
ington, the heroic work which he did, the saintly 
Avay in which he did it, yet think he was not a 
great man of tlie highest kind — that he wanted 
genius. O boys and girls, there never was a 



24 

greater blunder. Do not fiincy f!>r a moment 
that Wasliington was a commonplace, second-rate, 
dull ]nan, who simply did his duty in a dogged 
way, and rose to. eminence because his country 
was great and his enemies were fools. He had 
genius — the genius of a ruler — of a king of men; 
tlie miglity art by which, at intervals in the histo- 
ry of the world, one royal soul after another lias 
caused other souls to seek him, to defer to him, to 
yield to him, to obey him, to give up their destiny 
to his will. Tills art of government is a S2)eciric 
gift as completely as Reynolds's painting, or 
Burke's orator}^, Cowper's poetry, or Haydn's mu- 
sic, or Watt's invention. Like every one of these, 
it may be studied, 2)ractised, cultivated; it is 
hel})ed ])y opportunity, by daring, by prudence; 
but ANhen we come to the last analysis, we feel tliat 
some men, some Avonien, Ave might say some boys 
and girls, are born leaders, and bound to lead, un- 
less jealousy and crime deliberately sliuts them in 
or cuts them off, because their natural power is 
recognized and dreaded. They may be great as 
soldiers, they may ])e orators, they may be states- 
men, or they may have little or no success in tliese 
arts ; but they will sIioav the power of making the 
greatest soldiers and orators and statesmen do 
their work, and set their diadems firmer on their 
heads. The l)est of tliese leaders includes tlie 
greatest friends and the greatest enemies of nuin- 
kind; it includes tyrants and it includes heroes. 
But tlie emphatic name, lord of men, given by 



25 

Humer to liis great cliief, wlio was not tlie strong- 
est nor the bravest, nor tlie wisest in his army, is 
one which marks an independent quality, as much 
as a sculptor's or a navigator's. A blessing or a 
curse to mankind, according as lie wlio has it 
rules for himself and his favorites or for liis peo- 
ple and liis God. You may all see at this moment, 
two men in Europe who are maintainiiig their 
positions against every kind of enmity open and 
secret, because they have a genius for ruling. 
Envy and hatred themselves cannot deny that 
Bismarck and Gladstone have' the gift of control 
— the power that sets one man above other men ; 
and, unless I am very much mistaken, it will be 
recognized, and recognized before very long, by 
those who do not know it now, that the United 
States is under the management of one of these 
born rulers, — our, wise, fearless, noble, 2>'itriotic 
President Cleveland. 

It seems to me no one who reads Washing- 
ton's life attentively can doubt that he had this 
power. It is on the very face of history that men 
the most opposite in all respects consulted him, 
confided in him and submitted to him, simply 
because the}^ had a feeling that his way must be 
the right way, and his authority was Avith tliem 
more than mere wisdom or experience. These 
were no infeiior men whom he had to deal with. 
Franklin and Adams, Jefferson and Hamilton, Jay 
and Marshall, Greene and Knox, Lafayette and 
Gallatin were not men who easily accept another 



20 



mail as their leader and yield their judgment to 
liis. They were men of rare independence of 
character — leaders of men themselves, who won 
renoAvn and honor in stations of government. Yet 
every one of them felt lionored by recognizing 
liim as their leader ; and the army, the country, 
tlie distinguished men Avho came to us from 
abroad, the wise and great in every land to whom 
they sent back the tale ; the heart of mankind 
which feels when a great man is born into the 
world, recognized with tears of joy and gratitude 
that God had raised up another prophet to lead 
Israel out of captivity. 

It was well that it was so. It was better 
that America should give birth to a king of men 
in her hour of agon}^, than that she sliould have 
^lozart or Goethe born to her. In this year, 1886, 
it is especially important for us to remember this. 
Tliis is the centennial year of America's darkest 
and saddest hour. In 1T86, my dear children, your 
dear country and mine had sunk lower in the 
Avoiid's opinion than ever she did before or since. 
The thirteen States were quarrelling with each 
other and among themselves ; the grand impulses 
with which they had rushed to Lexington and 
Princeton and Eutaw and Yorktown was all ex- 
pended; they could not pay their just debts 
to Europe, whose generosity had helped them 
through the war, nor even to their own soldiers, 
whose courage had won it. They stood before 
the world discredited and abased, and men were 



27 

patching to see England and France and Spain 
sWOop dovv^n like eagles on their bloodless carcasses 
md divide the plunder among themselves. It was 
absolutely necessary to do something, to do it strong- 
ly, and to do it soon. What was wanted was a 
national government, a central power throughout 
che whole country, informing every citizen in it, 
and every nation outside of it, that the United 
States made one people, and as one people would 
make their just will felt, both at home and abroad. 

But this government was just what many 
A^mericans were afraid of. They thought liberty was 
the only thing worth having ; they thought liberty 
could do everything ; that it was the only good 
thing, and that everything that hindered liberty was 
Dad, They had for a moment forgotten that there 
was another thing which makes a people great, and 
that is law, the law that takes away a part of 
liberty to keep the rest from being lost in tyranny. 

But Americans at this time were terribly 
afraid of anything like a law for the whole Union; 
they could think of nothing but freedom, and for 
that they were prepared to sacrifice prosperity and 
honesty. They smelt the poison of tyranny in 
every government. They fancied that if they 
elected rulers they would make themselves kings, 
blazing Avith gold and fenced with steel, buying 
up every base man and killing every good man in 
their lust for power. I must be allowed to say 
that some of the most distinguished Americans of 
the time — Patrick Henry, for instance, whose 



28 



burst about liberty j^^'^^^}' i^i'^icli every boy here 
has declaimed — talked a monstrous deal of non- 
sense on this matter. They said if you have av 
general government you must put one man at the|| 
head of it, and that man Avill become a tyrant. 
" No," said the friends of government, " we shall 
put George Washington at the head of it; he 
cannot become a tyrant, and no one after liim will 
dare to." It was the true answer, and it Avas 
enough. It was felt that the disgrace and misery 
of 1786 must not be repeated. In 1787, the Avisest 
men of the country met in convention to form a 
Constitution for the United States. It Avent out 
under Washington's signature, and his authority l| 
carried it through against the boldness of Adllains, 
the craft of knaA- es and tlie terrors of fools, and, 
AA'liat is harder to conquer than all three, the quib- 
lings of men Avho haA^e some goodness, some honor 
and some sense, but Avho Avould pick to pieces any 
plan, though an angel from heaven proposed it. 
The fact that Washington believed in the Consti- 
tution, and that he Avas there to be the first 
President, Avas an argument in its favor that all 
the genius of Hamilton, all the Avisdom of Madi- 
son, all the virtue of Jay could not equal. 

It Avas adopted ; he was chosen ; our country 
came up from the depths and stood on her feet ; and 
it Avas having him at her head that did it. No lib- 
erty and no laAv, no enterprise and no patience, 
no courage and no religion Avill of themselves make 
a nation unless there are men to lead ; and in terri- 



29 

ble times, when the bravest falter and the truest 
doubt, there needs one great man to whom all may 
look as to the oracles of God. The people must 
have a man in whom the honor and strength of their 
nation is concentrated ; a man to lead their charge 
onward, like Washington, when he leaped the w^all 
at Princeton, bursting on the startled British like 
a hunter on his game : — a man to hold them firm in 
a well-chosen position, like Washington, when he 
held the British pent within the lines of Boston, 
weakening and wasting them simply by standing 
still : — a man, it may be, to bid his people fall back 
from a wrong done in rashness and folly, retreat- 
ing to the firm ground of honor and virtue, like 
Washington, when, on his first campaign, he aban- 
doned the fortress of the Great Meadows. 

Our constitution declares that any American 
man may rise to be a ruler in the land ; it may 
be that before many years, though I do not see it, 
the American women will rise and declare they 
shall be rulers, too — if they want to be they cer- 
tainly will. But this I say to you, dear boys and 
girls, from whom our rulers are to come, — what- 
ever rights and opportunities the law may give, no 
man is fit to be a ruler of his country who does 
not model himself, first, last and always, on the 
greatest of all who ever bore that mighty name, 
the Father of his Country, the Friend of Man- 
kind, the Servant of God, the Saint and Hero, 
George Washington ! 



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